Anyhoo (yes "anyway" was already taken).

Well that was fun.

Went up to my brother's in London for the weekend, to see Bill Bailey. As you would expect he is very funny. And of course I can only remember two thirds of any joke. He is also freakishly musical (a Hillbillied-up Bohemian Rhapsody anyone?) and creatively quick-witted (don't ask about the after eight mints or being "full on vegan").

In fact despite being the only sober one there (the theatre harangue you into buying drinks before taking your seat), about the only bit I remember is the description of George "Walker with an N" Bush as "The tie on a conger eel" (a Rumsfeld reference, but you had to be there).

That, and the noticeably less laughter when he hit the topic of fox hunting (more comedy, less controversy please).

Oh yes and the wonderfully angst-ridden rock lament based entirely on nu-metal chords entitled "How can I feel pain when you've been so supportive?".

And "quickly and quietly, quickly and quietly, SHOUTING, SHOUTING, quickly and quietly". Richard Burton's acting, obviously.

There was one joke which he'd done on Never mind the Buzzcocks a week or two before, which I still can't remember.

It's not fair. I can remember bits of jokes and trains of thought, but not enough to be able to retell them to induce the same result. For example, three blind mice walk into a pub ... something about them being aware of their surroundings, anthropomorphising, and being exploitative. See, it just doesn't quite work does it? Although actually I might be combining two different jokes.

So, Bill Bailey: part troll, part genius.
He's on again on the 11th apparently [scroll down].

So onto other London stuff.

Friday.
Managed to leave much later than I meant to, and so had to get on train crowded with college students [that's as in Sixth Form College, so 16-18ish]. And of course it's October, so all the first year Sixth are all busy trying hard to impress. So there's an awful lot of ridiculous fashion, and unfeasibly complicated make-up. Including the girl sitting opposite me on the train, who was wearing the distinctive Eskimo Shakira look of clumpy fur lined boots [according to a fashionable friend, they are "ugg" boots] and a mini-skirt. The girl spent the whole time trying not to look frozen, and also trying to find position that wouldn't let the carriage know she was wearing M&S's best.

It didn't help that she and her friends were talking in a thoroughly estuarine accent, which they weren't very good at. Occasionally words with a few too many syllables and vowels from St Wherever's would slip out, and there would be an awkward pause.

Then I got hit by a blast of Radiohead, only to discover it was being sung by people in school uniforms. My god, they must have been about 8 when that came out.

So that was entertaining. But not nearly as entertaining as getting into Waterloo and buying a one day travelcard. For the day after. It's amazing how many times I can ignore the light saying "Seek assistance" because I don't believe I need to. Eventually a kind man in uniform lead me away, and went to get it sorted out.

London Underground have a special machine for voiding tickets and transferring the value onto others. Unfortunately the user has to put the ticket through twice. And the guy doing it for me didn't figure that out for a long time, and then kept making mistakes, ending up with a stack of freshly printed and freshly voided tickets.

A small bit of rush hour Northern Line later, and I was in Camden, saying "where are you?", followed by a conversation about not being able to get run over because of the police-cars down the end of the road, whether that was the air-ambulance, and how my brother can see me when I can't see him, and oh, there he is, bye. Hello.

At least he only texted me when I was on the train so I was saved that cliché. However I was doing the impatient and nervous checking my phone constantly for messages (due to arranging to meet in "London", and his work being on one side, his flat on the other, and him probably by that time being somewhere uncontactable in between).

And then it's into a bar in Camden, meeting people from his work. Which meant I spent most of the night trying to work out if one of the barmen was someone I went to school with (it looks exactly like him as he was when I saw him last year), whilst trying to figure out how to contribute to discussions of the Star Wars DVD. Apparently Hans Solo no longer fires first. There goes the moral ambiguity of the films.

I only just remember the films, and about the only thing I can contribute is the freakish incidence of Miss Walkers with the forename Skye (staring all day at lists of people born in 1990 does have its uses).

And then topic moved onto ipods, the battery draining power of Bluetooth, who's getting sacked next, more talk which illustrates the fact the work for an engineering company, oh, and then the wonderful attempt to upload porn as the background on the phone of any poor fool in bar who has happened to leave his Bluetooth enabled. My phone was off completely as I hadn't brought the charger. It turned out it to be the phone of one of their colleagues.

And how many bars offer to charge customers' phones behind the bar? Somehow my brother managed to get his done. I would have thought it was a bit dodgy, but the phone was turned off, so there wasn't much chance of a barman's girlfriend in Australia being called. And the phone did reappear. Maybe I'm just too cynical.

And then back to my brother's flat, via Mornington Crescent [I win], my brother reciting the contents of his phonebook (I missed why), and a very Cla'hum fish and chip shop. It's called the Sea Cow, not the usual pun on plaice, or a formulaic Bob's. It replaced the normal fish and chip shop that used to be there. It charges a silly amount for normal fish and chips. It has a large flat screen on the wall showing a montage of tropical fish (no comments about the Windows screensaver). It strongly resembles Heals (well maybe Habitat). The takeaway comes special souvenir presentation packs [white cardboard boxes], inside a well-engineered white paper bag. It even comes with a hefty chunk of lemon, in addition to the salt and vinegar [which was disappointingly run of the mill, with not the slightest suggestion of rose Perry vinegar or Caspian salt flakes]. All this for the bargain price of £6. But one is obviously paying for having the option to have swordfish instead of haddock. It was the organic bread and butter for £1 that got me. Nowhere did it mention if the potatoes were organic, where the fish came from (does organic trump slumping fish stocks in terms of the moral high ground?), or whether the cooking fat, salt, lemon and vinegar was organic [can salt be organic?], whether the cardboard and paper for the packaging was recycled or came from sustainably managed forests, whether chlorine bleach had been used in producing it, how many phosphates had been churned out in production, how many miles everything had travelled, and the methods of transportation, whether the gas, water and electricity for the building comes from renewable sources, which sources they count as renewable, whether the building is optimal in energy efficiency, whether it values and respects the surroundings, whether it was built on an ancient Indian burial ground (they'd be a bit lost), whether...

It was reasonable fish and chips, being both fair quality and quantity, but it could have been crisper. But by that stage I wouldn't have cared. Slightly alarmingly, when I finished, there was one of the round bits of cardboard punched out of the ventilation holes in the box. There were two holes with nothing in.

And then we did what any two young males in London are supposed to do on a Friday night. Watch the tag end of the news, and struggle to stay awake throughout Jonathon Ross. I can't really remember who was on. Ewan MacGregor and friend, someone who looked like the lovechild of Michael Jackson and Joan Rivers - Nancy Sinatra (who sang live [you could tell], bless her), except I didn't hear what she said as I was too distracted by discovering that her father was a mafiosi.

And so to bed.

Saturday.
The traditional lying awake in some else's house, waiting for them to wake up (and go and buy food for breakfast, because only he knows which are the real cornershops are which are just fronts). Have bacon sandwiches, whilst discussing stuff, and scanning the Guardian. We try to decide what to do, whilst I realise that trying to arrange to meet someone at some as yet unspecified time, which could be fairly soon, and needs to reasonably soon, doesn't work too well when said person does not do mornings. Eventually, just as my brother and I have decided to watch Bullitt, or possibly go to British Museum if we can find it, the text comes through, and I head off towards Fulham.

According to the AA, from tube station to tube station is 3.8 miles (and should take 13 minutes). Via tube it's somewhere near 45 minutes. Using rough estimates it should only take about quarter of an hour more to walk it. And yet you know that out of all the options, the one based on buses will be the slowest.

Anyway, if I hadn't gone by tube, I wouldn't have heard my first Christmas Carol of the year. The singers were huddled round the entrance to Clapham North. I think they were carol singing, but they weren't very good, so it was bit hard to tell.

And Fulham was as Fulhamy as ever, with the planes coming in directly along the street leading to my friend's flat. Getting there I discovered that due to the wondrous power of communication betwixt us, neither of us had known the other was in Camden last night.

Skipping the rest of Fulham [it being the conversation of two people who ought to talk more and don't], and it was back to Clapham.

Which reminds me. Cas-Av getting Cas-Avy about the art for the cover of some tube map leaflet. The art is basically a roundel using the colours of the tube lines. The idea works better in Sloane Square station [just passing through], where the hoardings over the refurbishment work are covered in a variety of connected images. For example showing screws, or wiring in the tube line colours. Um, this would work better if I had spur of the moment pictures I'd taken with my digital camera to illustrate my point, wouldn't it? I have no digital camera. Oh well.

Back at Clapham, and we get ready (well, he gets ready, and I wait). Then we're off to somewhere the other side of the railway bridge. Apparently the other side of the bridge is Brixton. De de der! Oh no, not Brixton! Except we went to one of his freind's flat, and according to them, Brixton is the other side of the railway.

I don't know what it is about his friends, but they are all annoyingly nice, kind and funny. It might just be the massed confidence. So after a short please-stop-making-me-laugh while, we head off to the nearest tube station. That is, all except the girl who hosted New Years, who does not do Brixton, but she wasn't coming to Bill Bailey anyway.

And what's all the fuss about Brixton? It seemed just normal. The usual urban clutter of buildings and railings, jealously guarded bits of tarmac, bit too much litter, another modern Sainsburys (obviously 15 years ago Sainsburys decided they needed to develop a distinctive South London style. So they opted for angular grey). Then I suppose most places would seem normal on a recently-monsooned-upon, late Saturday afternoon in early October.

And then down into the underground, and onto a wailing tube. And I thought my brother and I got enough odd looks when, whilst sitting opposite each other, there's three silent flicks of a hand followed by a muttered "drat" [scissors paper stone, he usually starts it]. But this cluster of people, well, they're obviously used to using the tube in each other's company. And of course the Victoria line is so loud there is no hope of conversation. So there's mimes, and playacting.

Not to forget the curious bouts of mock horse riding. It coincides with the lumpier sections of track. If I wasn't with them, I'd probably be thinking very misanthropic things. But somehow it's ok, when one is part of the smug and the silly. Having said that, I did my best to pretend I wasn't with them, when a commanding female voice bust upon an sudden quietness with the phrase "...unbecoming to ride astride in slacks". It is the first time I have ever seen an entire carriage turn to look, rather than resolutely ignore the goings-on. By way of explanation, it started with the silly riding actions, and someone suggested that the female in the group ought to be riding side-saddle. So she mimed, and started a diatribe in the voice of a "disgusted of Tunbridge Wells".

A while later and we surface at Caledonian Road. We met another friend, who, well, I never figured out. I think, judging by the interactions, he is only friends with part of the group. As that part did extend to my brother, he seemed to regard me as not even visible. I attempt pleasantries, and retreated in the face of disdain.

Next the group wanders en masse around the area hunting for anywhere to eat. We fail spectacularly. In the end someone rings the theatre to ask for suggestions, and of course is told to use the restaurant under the theatre. This is one of the disadvantages of going to a theatre that describes itself as a "found space". It's been found in the middle of nothingness [endless industrial buildings], and so there is none of the usual cluster of associated businesses.

It also backs onto the railway. Which means it shakes, rumbles and rattles quite often. Mr Bailey was thrown by this. He was even more thrown by someone putting their hand up, to say "Sorry". Childish humour.

Anyway, so we eat in the restaurant, which basically means, we wait for a long time, and then most of the not big enough meals appear. I finish mine in record time, and would have started on my brother's chips, except I didn't think he had enough for himself. The remaining two meals appear a few minutes before we ought to leave. It's really very considerate of the manager to ensure that meals are small enough to be finished quickly.

And then we go up, to get harangued into buying drinks by a man guarding the stairs. Once inside the theatre, it's a free for all for seats. Which means the advance party has managed to bag a chunk of bench. However it's not quite enough for all of us, so my brother ends up hunched, and I hang on by 2/3s of a buttock. Subtle suggestions gain us some room, but not much. And then the usher wangs on someone else at the other end of the bench. Yippee. It's just as well I have sillily long legs, which don't fit in most theatres, so I can stick them out onto the steps and be my own tripod.

As I said earlier, Bill Bailey funny, and I have a poor memory.

And so to home. Or not. They decide they want to go to a bar or club, which is on X street. Where is X street? Don't know. So we look on the map in the tube station. It's not on their. So we go down to Kings Cross. Not on the map there. Trying to be with them feels like a odd sort of Brownian motion, as they are all moving constantly, in different directions. They decide to get a taxi to this bar. I opt out, having had my brother being drunkenly unhelpful (he probably sees it as not wanting to pressure me, I see it as him wanting rid of me, but without saying so directly). They still get into two taxis, even though without me there's only 1 taxi worth of people. I try to tell them. They're drunk. I give up.

I head back to my brother's flat, via a fiendishly complicated route through the Kings Cross rebuilding work. It probably would have been quicker to walk down the street till I got to another entrance than follow that route to the underground.

I get back to his flat without being offered drugs once (the man on the wall wasn't there. How disappointing). And somehow manage to watch the late repeat of Green Wing instead of going to bed. Sitting in someone else's cold flat alone isn't much fun.

The next morning, and he sticks his head round the door as he's off sailing. Thanks bye. I get up, have breakfast of sorts - when my brother said he'd left "some bread" he was technically accurate - and decide to wander off shopping. Which means I get to Oxford Street an hour before everything opens [I've done that before but it was on a weekday last time], and so find myself traipsing up the length of it, and then getting the tube back down (tube line under a straight road, yet it bends. Odd).

Still too early, so I have a quick wander round where one of my friends used to live and work (the hugged-chimney flat), then back to the shops. Where I hunt round for a while, and then spend a giddying £5.98 on 2-shirts. When did that happen? When did money stop meaning as much. £5 used to be a lot. I know there's inflation, and various other reasons for change, but it's just odd to be struck that that much money is now nearly inconsequential, rather than being worth a great deal. But maybe it's partly because I'm older, and find myself having to spend much more.

Then I spend a hefty chunk of the day meandering round other shops, alternatively wanting to be grown-up enough to be able to buy something and have some use for it, and then thinking everything available is hideous. And what is it about the furniture department of John Lewis's [I was trying to find a loo] on a Sunday, that the entire place is full of gay couples selecting settees?

Anyway, some how ended up in HMV, browsing their "biggest ever sale!". Which isn't hugely sale-like. Having said that I bought the DVDs of Blue Juice [twice, one for my brother as a ta muchly], Taxi, and Donnie Darko, the last two being sight unseen, but recommended. CDs of Massive Attack: Mezzanine (have on mp3, but good enough to want a proper back-up), Morcheeba: Parts of the Process, Oasis: Definitely Maybe (not sure I ought to have done, but never mind), and Linkin Park: Hybrid Theory (listening to it, and it's familiar - I'd forgotten I had it on mp3).

Then rushing back to the flat, past someone from work. Going back to the falt via Sainsbury's (bit of a dog-leg really), which was trying to shut. But a random selection of reduced bakery things, and scurry towards the flat. Eat. Pack. Find more to pack. Try to repack. Worry. Get too hot. Remember more things. Feel guilty for leaving the washing-up. Ought to leave my brother a note. Door bangs. He's back from sailing. No, I haven't left yet, I ought to, want a doughnut, take some more for later, I can't eat them all, yes I know about the taxis, I did try to tell them last night, oh, here, present, got to go, sorry, thanks, bye, thanks, bye.

Do a good impression of a flustered person moving fast. Fly on tube, change at Kennington. And rest. Well, I don't, but the train does. Two more Via Banks come up and discharge before we move. I catch myself jigging backwards and forwards, as I do when the car won't start, or is struggling up a hill, or as some people do to make their horses move faster (it must be some innate use of momentum thing, but the fact it was across the carriage is irrelevant).

And then I re-emerge at Piccadilly Circus. Now to find the statue I invariably miss (don't ask me how I miss Eros and co, it's just that I find I've walked through the place without seeing it). I walk round the statue, not being able to see her. Oh she's right round the other side just beyond where I started walking round. But she's facing away from the underground entrance. Does she think I've walked from Clapham? I know I walked to her Harley Street flat from Waterloo last time, but that's Waterloo. She turns round to face towards the statue.

Yep, I'm just a strange man, who happens to be making priest-like "peace child" gestures into the air. For god's sake, it's the same coat as last time, a jumper that's surprisingly similar to the one I worn when I last saw her, and my appearance has been fairly distinctive and unchanging since I was 3. I know I'm late, but she doesn't have to look through me quite so monotonously. I walk up to her, and she's still not noticing. I walk round behind her, and prod equally under the ribs, in a perfectly executed pincer.

I get an "Oh". Followed by a pause, then an "Oh, it's you, oh hello", and then her responding "Oh you're not, not late, not much". Er, right, what's happened that I don't know about? Or was she always this switched off? Does she know the mugger would have been long gone by the time she hit the second "Oh"? Hope she never has to find out.

Having arranged to meet in Piccadilly, she wishes to have coffee in somewhere off Leicester Square. We start walking. I have problems meshing my "walking in crowds" mode [where every surface is fair game, and moving almost too fast to stop scares people out of your way quite well] with my "ambling with slow moving company" mode. I leave her behind repeatedly, usually by widening only a couple of strides. So I start moving very slowly. It doesn't seem work well as I scarcely move, and then get chivvied by her.

After a minor detour (hearing drums, which must be Chinatown, wondering what's on, shall we go and look? Finding the tail end of a dragon and bemused crowds. Let's not bother), we get there. Where to buy coffee? Quick wander, and we end up in somewhere chosen because we knew we were about to get to Starbucks.

Cue: pineapple juice and hot chocolate (you can guess which was me, as they cost about the same, and for that money I at least want more energy exerted on my drink), dull conversations about Wagamamas, dull conversations about people I scarcely know marrying people I might have met, the usual pitying looks, her suppressing the urge to convert me (obviously that only happens over solid pineapple, perhaps attached to pizza), occasional lapses into fun prior lives, but never for long.

It didn't help that we were wedged in on a small table, from under which protruded my two bags, a few legs, the chairs were drowned in coats, and we were flanked on one side by some long immaculate book-reading Italian, and the other the narrow passage to the bar, beyond which was a table of soggy, overheated tourists. I don't like places where one is hunched because of the space, and also because one is aware everyone can hear whatever anyone else says.

Then it finishes, as I hit the dregs of the very sweet, unstirred powder, we ask for the bill (but she didn't say "bill", I can't remember what it was, but it was something odd), which takes ages to appear - I've never understood why that happens, as people who've already asked for the bill are never going to start ordering more - and then it's on to being invited to church, which I decline, as I have to be getting back so I can sleep, she insists on paying. I need to find ways of graciously accepting which don't use the words "Oh alright then". It's one of those places that adds on 15% service regardless of the already over-inflated prices. Off to the tube station together, where we split up as she takes the wrong line to get where she wants to be. I don't question it and just say bye.

Then waterloo, then run along the concourse, then along the platform, skipping the first ordinary compartment, and I keep going down the train, and then find another carriage of first class compartments. And so I swing into the end one, which isn't. This is why I like old-fashioned rolling stock. Compartments, functioning doors, effective heating, and cooling, via an openable window. And I like the sound they make. Judging by the people streaming down the platform and train, it'll be packed elsewhere. But we have 3 people in 8 seats. It's nice to have legroom.

The man to my left obviously thinks Catch-22 is an odd book for me to be reading. The man opposite is feigning interest in a blank, except for the doodles, crossword. At Clapham a woman gets on, and sits directly opposite the man in the window seat on my left. A man comes in to sit between the corridor door and I, opposite crossword man, ignoring the two spaces adjoining opposite.

Into Woking there's a row in the next compartment, which is first class. At Notacity a man with an open bottle of something brown gets on. He sits down, hears the shouting, goes into the corridor. A girl from next door is turfed off the train, and dragged down the platform by staff towards the main office. The drunken man reappears, asks me to open the platform door, and jumps off the train shouting "Are you a Tory?". The girl laughs. Crossword man gives up all pretence, and cranes to see out of the window. Man next to me is busy pretending he's reading, but he doesn't have a book or newspaper, and so is making do with the label on his bag.

Back into Tweeton, I head off, desperate to not be within hailing distance of a woman I recognised at Waterloo - the fearsome mother of a friend [albeit from a while ago, and the mother's not all that fearsome, just a bit perpetually menopausal]. And then down the road in the dark, stubbornly ignoring the pavement on the wrong side of the road, as there never used to be a pavement, and everyone always walks down this bit, and any local driver will know that (and what other driver would be around picking people up from the station on a Sunday night? They'd be so thrown by the road functioning as a one way street despite that fact it has never been, and the widespread disregard for the other laws controlling the road, that they won't be attempting to drive fast enough to be surprised by a stream of pedestrians).

And so home and to bed.

Anyhoo,

PS. Remembered another joke.
3 women walk into a bar.
The first one says: Hurrah, we have broken into that bastion of chauvinism, the male-dominated joke format.
The second one says: Look at my breasts.
The third one says: Ah, but it is a hollow victory, as the joke is still being told by a man.